two-legger was thinking to himself, the thoughts were all wrapped up in those same strange sounds that the others had used. But he could also feel what the two-legger had felt; and he could understand that.

Most of the two-legger's memories were filled with other two-leggers, and the big shiny things they all used and lived in. The two-legger seemed to spend most of his time travelling on those rock trails; he would push and pull on the insides of one of the loud things, and it would take him where he wanted to go. He would get out, and carry something big and heavy into a big den of other two-leggers; he would open it up, and show them the things inside, and they would all pass the things around and look at them. Then he would go back to his loud thing, and go somewhere else, and do this all again, and again. When the sun started to go down, he would go back to his den, and eat, and watch the pictures coming out of a box, and sleep.

Sometimes the two-legger would feel happy while he was doing these things, and sometimes sad, and sometimes angry, and sometimes nothing at all. And the wolf could not understand this; when the same things always happened, how could there be so many different ways of feeling about it?

But sometimes the two-legger would do different things. Once in a while, he would go to a big place filled with animals--some that the wolf had seen before, but many that he hadn't. There were far too many animals for such a small place, but there were rocks and canyons in between them, so they couldn't run away or get at each other. The two-legger would walk through this place, and watch the animals, but he would always go to the same spot, where there were two wolves. They were fat, and their fur was dull and scraggly, and they were very bored; they would just walk around in circles, or stand and watch the humans, or lie down and sleep. The wolf felt sorry for them; they would never starve, that was clear, but he couldn't understand how they could live in such a small place for so long, and with only one wolf for company. But the two-legger would watch them, and watch, and watch; the other two-leggers would come and go, and even the wolves would lose interest in him, and still he would watch. And sometimes he would be happy, and sometimes sad.

But sometimes, the wolves would howl together, to break the boredom; and the two-legger would close his eyes and listen. And then he would always be sad then, and there would be a longing, deeper than anything else the two-legger felt--like he wanted to howl too, wanted to be on the other side of the canyon and the rocks, where the wolves were.

And the wolf thought he could understand that.

Because when the howling stopped, the two-legger would always turn and leave that place, and go back to his den, and watch the pictures in the box until it was time to sleep. And it was never cold or wet there, and there was always food.

But he was always alone.

The wolf could imagine how hard it would be to live in that small place with the other wolves lived--to look at the same things every day, to pace in circles, to never leave.

But he could not even imagine what it would be like to live alone.

The wolf knew now that he thought differently from the others in his pack. He saw the same things that his pack mates did, but he saw meanings in those things that they did not. On the hunt, he quickly became a master at studying a herd, picking out its weakest member. And when the chase was on, he could take a quick glance around him, know the twists and turns that would happen in the next few second, -not just which way the prey would run to, but how his pack mates would respond to that--and know where he should be as well. It often wasn't enough, the prey still escaped more often than not. But he made more than his share of kills, and the pack did not want for food, even when winter came and times grew hard.

He rose through the pack; not only was he smart, but quick and strong as well. Rarely did he have to fight for his position, and when he did, it was short. Even when he strained a muscle in his hind leg and was hobbled for a time, he was not challenged, and no one questioned his place at the kill.

The memories still came, and he learned more and more. He started to understand how some of the two-leggers' strange sounds worked; they were things--a sound for every thing. The rock trails were "road"; the loud things that took the two-leggers down them were "car"; their dens were "home"; and the two-leggers themselves were "human". He could see where such a thing would be very useful; they could tell each other about the things, with those sounds, rather than showing them. He even tried making those sounds himself; but they wouldn't come out right at all--that must be why wolves didn't use them--and his pack mates just looked at him strangely.

And the two-leggers, the humans, gave themselves sounds as well; each human had a sound of their own. The wolf wondered a bit about that, they knew who they were talking to; why did they need a sound for that too? But he supposed it might come in handy too.

His human's sound was "Jack".

That seemed familiar somehow. He wondered why that was.

Life in the wolf pack was pleasant... as pleasant as it got. The wolf had earned the respect of his pack. The males above him left him alone, perhaps afraid to force a confrontation; those below him needed only occasional reminders... a snarl here, a nip there... to keep them in their places.

The seasons came and went, and in time, he was the beta male. The Jack's memories in his head felt more like his own, now; he could think of them when he wanted, rather than waiting for them to happen. And he was making more and more sense of the sounds the humans made.

He studied the alpha, his father, carefully, judging his chances. The alpha was getting old, but he hadn't lost his strength, and had a lifetime of experience fending off rivals like him. It would be a tough fight, if it came to that. But somehow, he still knew that he would win that fight.  The alpha's place could be his. Springtime would come soon, and with it the breeding season; he knew that only the alphas would mate, and that desire called to him, he wanted that chance, more deeply than he had wanted anything before. It was almost like what the human, the Jack; felt when he closed his eyes, and listened to the wolves howl.

He could take it whenever he wanted.

But he was troubled.

He knew that he could win. But he also knew that the alpha had much more experience with the world than he did, had seen so much more than he had. The alpha knew where the prey would run to when the snow went away, where the dangerous ground was. If he were alpha, he would have to lead the pack... and he knew that he could not do it as well.

It was one of those odd feelings. It was something that a Jack would worry about, not a wolf. The wolf knew it.

But the more he thought about it, the more he agreed with it.

So he waited. And life in the pack stopped being so pleasant.

The alpha, perhaps trying to discourage him from challenging, perhaps confused as to why that challenge hadn't come, harassed him unmercifully. Stoically, he took it. Sensing weakness, other males pressed him as well; the battle to keep his place in the pack was constant, and several times he had to leave a younger packmate bloody to make his point.

To make matters worse, the winter was getting hard, and the prey was vanishing. There was simply not enough food to go around; the wolves started fighting for their places at the kill, and those who could not fight, starved. Two of that spring's pups died in the same day. The omega male left the pack, desperate for any chance to find food on its own; the pack found the body a week later, curled up next to a frozen stream. The pack sniffed at the remains for a few moments, then moved on; there was no energy for sentimentality.

The wolf started to think that this human worrying was too much trouble after all.

Then, one day, the pack was at the edge of a forest, looking for any signs of prey.

The wolf heard something; a whupwhupwhupwhup in the sky. A helicopter, he thought, not stopping to realize that he was thinking in sounds, like the humans did. He had heard helicopters before, and not just in the Jack's memories; but this one sounded different. It sounded... lower.

Then the helicopter cleared the trees, and his pack mates looked up, watching it; they had never seen one so close. Fear battled with curiosity, and curiosity--and the need to save their energy--won out.

The wolf looked up at the helicopter too; he was curious as well. But he saw that the door was open; saw a human pointing a long round metal rod out towards them...

...and he turned in a flash and streaked towards the tree line, barking frantically at his pack mates...

...and the rest of the pack, needing little incentive to get away from the loud shiny thing, ran after him...

...and the alpha male, perhaps trying to prove his place in the pack once and for all, stood his ground, bared his teeth at the thing and growled...

...and there was a sound, like a crack of thunder...

...and the alpha gave one brief cry, and dropped in his tracks, and died...

...and the pack watched from the trees, whimpering softly, as the helicopter landed, as two humans got out, picked up the alpha's body, and tossed him in...

...and one of the male yearlings growled, and took a few steps towards the humans; and the wolf crossed the distance in a flash, jumped on the yearling's back, drove him to the ground, then dragged him back behind a tree by the tail...

...and the humans got back in, and the door closed, and it lifted off, and vanished into the distance.

And all was quiet after that.

The pack slowly edged out into the clearing; the wolves made their way to the red spot in the snow where